A BATTLE call to all Milford Hospital supporters was issued by local campaigners this week.

Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust (PCT) acting chief executive Jane Dale is conducting a special briefing on Wednesday this week) on Milford’s specialist rehabilitation centre for the elderly. The future of local community hospitals will also be discussed.

“I anticipate bad news from the trust chief,” leading campaigner Simon Cordon said. “I think it will be back to five years ago when they tried to close all of our community beds and then Milford Hospital completely.”

Mr Cordon has been invited to the briefing, which concerns Milford rehabilitation centre for the elderly and Cranleigh, Haslemere and Farnham community hospitals.

A cross party campaign to support Milford Hospital was formed earlier this year, which is led by local MP Jeremy Hunt and Mr Cordon. A former Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesman, Mr Cordon is standing as a local county councillor in Thursday’s by-election.

The group has mounted a strong campaign and believes Milford should be expanded to become a centre of excellence for the care of the elderly, as part of the future re-development of the site.

Campaigners have suffered two recent setbacks, however. In April the PCT agreed to move 10 orthopaedic beds to the Royal Surrey County Hospital, which supporters branded “closure by stealth”.

In July, the PCT agreed to relocate Milford’s Oak Ward, which has 10 beds, to Farnham Hospital and Centre for Health. The trust said the action had been taken on grounds of “clinical safety” because staff numbers at Milford had critical levels.

Campaigners described the recent loss of 20 beds at the 60-bed hospital as “death by a thousand cuts” and promised to step up the fight to prevent Milford from closing.

Hopes were raised in February when the PCT announced that it was halting its public consultation to seek the best way forward for the hospital. Of the six options up for consultation, five were to close the hospital and to re-provide its services elsewhere locally.

It was announced that the consultation would be suspended until the trust had completed its overall ‘care pathway for the elderly’.

Mr Cordon called on supporters to back the campaign to save Milford if Wednesday’s briefing is bad news.

“We stopped them then and we must be prepared to fight even harder this time,” he said.